


People of Consequence

by Empatheia



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Abduction, Age Difference, Caretaking, F/M, First Kiss, Future Fic, May/December Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29971839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Empatheia
Summary: Leia gives Gaius his first kiss, appoints herself his HR manager, and kidnaps him for his own good.
Relationships: Gaius/Leia Rolando
Kudos: 1





	People of Consequence

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just have to write a fluffy little Amazon selfpub novelette about a spunky, ambitious young reporter with a smart mouth rescuing the king of the world from his own savior complex, y'know? It happens.

"Leia," said a deep, surprised voice behind her.

She spun on her heels, eyes widening. "G—" His raised eyebrow and citizen dress stopped her. "I mean, Erston! Gosh, I haven't seen you in _yonks_. What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," he said, sounding amused. "This is rather off the beaten path for you, isn't it?"

"I have beaten every path," she announced proudly, then paused. "That came out weird, but I mean, I go all over the place for stories. Wherever I need to, to find my sources. I haven't been back here in a while, but probably two or three times since I last saw you. Now: your turn."

Erston grimaced. "Rowen insisted that I go out for some fresh air and relaxation, and invited me to dinner here, but got called away by some emergency he refused to give me the details of so that I would not be able to go rescue him. I was just sitting here deciding what to do when I spotted your cap in the crowd."

Leia looked around her at the bare two dozen people in the town square, most of them paired up to enjoy the soft desert summer evening.

"I'd hardly call this a crowd, but okay," she said. "Sooo... what were the options?"

He furrowed his brow for a moment until he realized what she meant, then sighed. "Go straight back to Fennmont and see if I can squeeze some details out of the staff, or..."

"Do as you're told and have a nice dinner out on the town?" Leia guessed with a rather rakish grin, enjoying the way his spine visibly stiffened.

"I was just about to decide on the former, so if you'll—"

"Nope," Leia said.

Erston stopped, befuddled. "Beg your pardon?"

Setting her jaw with determination, she marched up to him and slipped her arm through his, and began to steer him towards the restaurant they were all intimately familiar with after that year on the road trying to save the world together. "I said, nope. You came all the way out here because Rowen could tell that you needed to get the heck out of there, so you're not going back until you've done a little unwinding. Rowen can handle himself. Don't worry about him."

"I..." Erston began, but she wasn't having it.

"No, Erston Outway, absolutely not. You are going out to dinner, and you're going to drink some fine spirits and forget your troubles for a bit before those bags under your eyes swallow your whole face. Consider me the arbiter of Rowen's will, here."

It still sounded a little odd to hear words like that coming out of her mouth, but it wasn't really possible to spend two years writing increasingly demanding articles for a premier paper without her vocabulary expanding a bit. She was rather pleased with the effect, personally. It made Jude stop and squint every now and then, and that was always fun. Apparently, it also made Ga— Erston squint too, and that was somehow even _more_ fun.

"Do you plan to give me a choice in this matter?" Erston asked, already defeated.

"Nope!" she confirmed. "I've wrapped up my research here and was just about to go to dinner myself, so too bad for you, you're stuck with me for the evening."

Erston sighed heavily, but didn't resist when she pulled him through the front door of Drellin's finest establishment.

It was a quiet weekday night outside of peak season, so they had no trouble acquiring a table, to Erston's badly hidden chagrin.

Smiling smugly, Leia tucked her napkin into her lap and ordered them a bottle of Casual to go with their spicy porange salmon four-course dinner. Her wallet was going to hate her, but she didn't splurge often, and she'd been getting paid decently well since her promotion from junior correspondent to full-time reporter. There was certainly no shortage of things to report on, in these tumultuous times.

Between mouthfuls of appetizer shrimp salad, Leia scrutinized Erston. She hadn't been exaggerating about the bags; the dark circles looked almost like shiners, and his skin was a little sallow, as if he hadn't seen much of the sun in the last two years. His spine was still straight as ever, defiant, but every other line of him moaned of weariness. She'd wonder how Rowen let him get into this state, but then she knew that it would have been much worse even than this without Rowen's efforts, and Rowen was an old man doing far too much himself.

"Good job on finalizing that international trade structure with Marcia, by the way," she mumbled around a mouthful of very excellent seafood and what she was fairly certain was Rieze Maxian lettuce. Elympios had come a long way since the advent of spyrites, but not quite this far. "I've been following it from the beginning, you know. The editor-in-chief wants to handle that himself, but I did everything short of flagellating myself on my knees to get him to give it to me. I might just show up anyway. All he'll do is yell, anyway, his bark is way worse than his bite."

That got almost a quarter of a smile out of Erston, which was gratifying. Getting him to smile was worse than pulling teeth. Pulling teeth from Siennabronc, maybe.

"Marcia did most of the hard work," Erston said graciously, which was a bald-faced lie.

She let it slide, mostly. "Not all of it, though. If the state of you is any indication, you put in more hours than you probably should have getting this hammered down. Are you allergic to delegating, or...?"

"My staff have been tremendously helpful," he said with the immense dignity he reserved for whenever he was feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable. "I am not overworked."

Despite herself, Leia snorted aloud. "No, clearly you look like death warmed over because you're totally fine. Obviously."

He opened his mouth to say something defensive, then closed it and suddenly looked a bit pathetic. Considering the size of him, and of the wagonload of charisma he carted around everywhere, that was quite a feat. Leia forgot to put the next forkful in her mouth, fascinated.

"Do I really?" he asked in the smallest voice she had ever heard out of him. "Can... Can everyone tell, or is it just you and Rowen?"

"Oh, Gaius," she said sympathetically, then slapped herself on the wrist for forgetting. "Sorry. Erston. I don't really know how to tell you this, but... yeah, I'm pretty sure anyone with functioning eyes can tell you're exhausted, if not right at the end of your rope. I know you're understaffed because you only trust people enough to hire them every once in a blue moon, but honestly, I think you're going to need to lower your standards just a bit if you want to stay king for the next decade instead of having a breakdown next year."

Erston, rather than getting his back up as he usually would, heaved a heavy sigh and took a somewhat overlarge swig of his tequila. "Rowen said much the same thing," he admitted ruefully, "but I would not bend."

"You're about as bendy as a brick wall," Leia agreed affectionately.

"If only I could hire you and the others," he lamented. "Four people I trust with my life would be a tremendous addition to my staff. It would certainly relieve some of the weight on my shoulders."

"But Jude is almost as harried as you are with his research, Alvin's business is booming, Elize is real happy working under Driselle, and I'm...."

"Obviously enjoying your job very much, and well on your way to becoming a person of consequence in the eyes of the world," Erston finished for her, with a sixteenth of a fond smile for her. "Of course, you've already been a person of consequence for quite some time, having saved said world twice as you have, but now you're becoming something that people recognize as such. I'm very happy for you, Leia. I would say proud, if it were my place."

Caught entirely off guard, she gaped at him, feeling her face flush with colour. Gaius rarely had praise for anyone, and Erston not much more often. He'd never said anything like this to her before. He'd never said anything like it within _earshot_ of her.

"I... um, wow. Thanks, Erston," she said in lieu of something more eloquent. "That... really means a lot to me."

To her surprise, it was Erston's turn to blush, and it looked more than strange on his stoic, kingly face. "I only spoke the truth," he muttered, taking another too-deep swig of the Casual.

She'd never pegged him for the kind of drinker who would do it to deny his own feelings, but with the evidence clear in front of her, she couldn't escape it. He got sentimental at tipsy, and thought the best way to fix that was to get properly drunk.

A hot surge of affection rose in her chest, and she hid her smile in her hand lest he think she was laughing at him.

"What if," she said, when she'd regained control of her face and given him a moment to compose himself as well, "I keep an eye out for good people and refer them your way when I think they’re up to the job? I'm not a terrible judge of character, and I meet a _lot_ of people."

"That... would be very helpful," he said slowly, as if surprised that she had actually suggested something good.

She made an effort not to pout, at that.

"I'll do that, then," she said. "I've already got a couple of people in mind to approach."

Erston reached halfway across the table as if to touch her hand, then withdrew, looking oddly self-conscious. "I should compensate you," he said. "That will almost be a second job for you, from the sound of it. What would be fair?"

Leia shrugged and lifted her fork. "I still mean to write that article on you, as a complement to Karla's book," she informed him. "So, how about you take me out to dinner every now and then and let me pick your brain?"

Grimacing, he nodded reluctantly. "I cannot honestly say I am looking forward to that," he said, "but if that is the compensation you desire, I cannot refuse you. Not after everything you have done, for me and for my people and for the world."

"You've gotta stop saying stuff like that," Leia said, helplessly clutching at her chest. "My heart can't take it."

He quirked his eyebrows at her quizzically. "I... don't understand," he admitted. "Is that an Elympion idiom?"

She laughed and shook her head. "No, Erston, it's not. I just mean... you're not usually this, uh, nice? Generous? I don't really know how to say this, so sorry if I'm too blunt, but... you're kind of aloof, most of the time. You give off this impression of infallible strength that makes people want to trust in you and follow you wherever you lead, and that's rare and amazing, but the flipside of it is you don't really make people feel like you... like them, as individuals. Or like you think they're your equal, though to be fair, you're don't really condescend to people, either. You're just... out of reach, all the time. To everyone."

Erston stared at her across the table, looking mildly thunderstruck.

Leia hastened to continue. "I don't really mean that's a bad thing, okay? I'm not saying you have to change; you're incredible as you are, and I'm honoured to know you. I'm just saying that when you — when that person I just described — says things that make it sound like you feel kind of, uh, warmly towards me... it's kind of a bombshell, you get me?"

For a few moments, Erston visibly chewed on this, along with the last few bites of his salad. With impressive subtlety, the waiter slipped the dish out from under him and replaced it with the main course, which smelled absolutely nothing short of divine even from where she was sitting. Hurriedly, she packed away the last of her own, and was rewarded with a repeat performance from the virtuoso waiter.

"Oh, man, this looks so good," she moaned. "I so needed this."

Mechanically, Erston began to eat, but apparently it was good enough to break through even to the depths of self-reflection where he currently resided, because his brows furrowed with the first mouthful and he made a sound that would have been erotic coming from anyone else on the second. Experimentally, he sipped his tequila on the next bite, and his face went so carefully still that anyone might have thought he'd made a terrible mistake.

Leia knew better, having just tried that herself; it was too good to react to properly, somehow, at least without disturbing the other patrons with orgiastic moaning.

"Still wishing you were back in Fennmont with your comfy, reliable backlog of paperwork?" she asked, a little pointedly.

Erston grimaced, then shook his head, conceding the point.

"Good," she said. "Maybe you'll remember this and make Rowen's job easier next time."

"Rowen," Erston said softly, frowning. He suddenly looked very sad. "I thought I understood the mistake I made with the Chimeriad," he said then, evidently done chewing. "I thought I had made progress, with Ludger at least. I thought I was learning how to...."

He paused for so long, groping for the right word, that Leia cut in.

"Be a human being?" she suggested, without sarcasm. "Be more than your rank?"

"I always thought of it as less than," he said softly. "That being king was the best thing I could be, the most effective way to serve my people."

"Oh, sure," Leia said, "it was. It is. If you're looking at it in terms of what's best for everyone else, right this minute, you being king 24/7 is definitely a good call. However," she said, holding up a hand to stop him from interrupting when it looked like he was about to, "it's not sustainable. Your humanity is the core of you, Erston, and if you neglect it for too long you'll end up a hollow king-shaped shell with no heart to make you move the way you should. If you want to keep being king, you have to take care of yourself, too. Aren't you also a citizen of Rieze Maxia? What tree can keep putting out leaves forever when its roots never get watered?"

"Your career has certainly made you more eloquent," he muttered, responding to nothing of import, then closed his eyes and sank his forehead into his hands.

Leia bit her lip, then said the thing she'd been sitting on, unsure of whether or not it would do more harm than good. Maybe he needed to hear it either way. "You know, Erston," she said carefully, "I met King Nachtigal. A few times, actually, and more if you count the fractured dimensions. I got a pretty good look at him. If you want to know what it looks like when a good king lets his heart die and hollows out, there you go."

Erston visibly flinched.

She didn't take it back. Nor did she say anything more. She'd made her point as hard as she could, and her dinner deserved better than to be ignored like this.

By the time Erston was ready to speak again, they had finished their entrees and were partway into their dessert, which was a variety of fruits stewed in napple liqueur and every bit as delicious as the rest of the meal had been so far. Leia was almost beginning to think the restaurant was undercharging, despite the steep pricetags on everything. Real quality was worth every gald.

"What..." Erston began, uncertain and unhappy. "What should I do, to keep myself sound?"

Leia smiled broadly around her mouthful of divine dessert, and reached out a hand across the table. Erston regarded it uncertainly. She swallowed and licked her lips.

"Stuff like this," she said. "Go out to dinner with friends, have heart-to-heart conversations with people you trust, set your work aside for a few hours to let yourself recover. When you go home, you should block off a good eight hours and sleep. And if you can't sleep, don't get up and go back to work; chill out and read a book or something. Go for a walk."

"Eight hours—" Erston began, horrified.

She cut him off, relentless. "When you have feelings, tell someone about them. Share them, and listen when other people share theirs with you. Not the way you listen to petitioners who want you to fix everything, though; more like you're listening to me now. Like they're a person and you're a person and you want to be connected to them."

He was beginning to look dizzy, so she sighed and took a different tack.

"When you were a kid, what were you and your sister like?" she asked. "Off the record. Just try to remember."

An old pain twisted across his face, but he forged through it and dug up an answer for her, which she appreciated. "We were... very ordinary," he said, with a tone like he was realizing something for the first time. "Squabbling and bickering over everything, but on each other's sides when it mattered. I matured late, and was very thin and small for much of my childhood, whereas she grew normally. She went after a bully with a stick, once, for daring to come after me. I joined the army because I wanted to make the world safe for her the way she'd made it safe for me. I...." He forced himself to finish. "I became king for her, and lost her in the doing."

"No, you didn't," Leia said gently. "You dropped your end of the connection. She was hurt, so she dropped hers too, but she's picked it up again. She wrote a _book_ , Erston. She told the world your story, and she was so kind about it my heart kind of broke a little. Have you read it? Nobody could doubt that she loves you. Not for a second. She's just waiting for you to remember how to be her brother."

"Just like you've been waiting for me to figure out how to be your friend?" he asked.

For the third time that night, Leia had to take a deep, pained breath. "Well, I mean, I wasn't really waiting," she said, "but Rowen definitely has been. Jude, too. I didn't think you'd ever look at me like... well, like I had a connection with you, but _they_ did, and I'm pretty sure they still do. So when you go home, after you sleep, and after Rowen rescues himself, you should sit down with him. Drink some tea. Talk."

"I'll... do that," Erston promised, though it seemed like the words had a hard time escaping the cage of his teeth.

"Cool," said Leia, polishing off her dessert and turning to the digestif, which was an assortment of spirits in very tiny crystal glasses with translucently thin slices of napple laid out around them as palate cleansers. Exquisite, really. "Um. Are you, uh, going to be my friend?" she asked then, kicking herself for the inelegance of her phrasing. "I mean, you said you thought I was waiting for you to figure out how. I wasn't, really, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't really like that."

An eighth of a smile, for that. "I think I would like that too, Leia."

Biting her lip, she held out her hand again, and this time he took it, awkwardly but earnestly. She squeezed her fingers around his, felt the determined heat of his skin and the weary pulsing of his heart.

She wished it hadn't been five years. Maybe she'd been too young to help him back then, and maybe she was still too young to do it right now, but she could have been there. She could have tried. If only she'd thought there was space for her there, within his expansive but unwelcoming presence.

After a few long moments, she reluctantly let his hand go so that he could deal with his own digestif. Watching him toss them back and make appreciative faces, she felt that hot swell of affection again, burgeoning within her, suffusing her with its warmth. It didn't die away, this time. It just got warmer the longer she watched.

A human being, she thought to herself. He really was just a human being, like her, despite the impressive and frankly intimidating royal carapace. A human being who loved the world so much he was willing to burn himself to a cinder from the inside out just to keep it warm. A desperately tired, desperately lonely human being.

_Oh,_ she thought then, with dawning horror. _Oh, no._

Gaius the king had been a dying patient in need of intervention, and she had stepped in like the nurse she was to tether him to the land of the living as best she could. Erston, the man who was the weary heart of that king, was a very different matter, though no less a problem.

Erston the man was good down to the marrow of his bones, strong as an oak, vulnerable and lonely and real. Erston the man was beautiful, and Erston the man was having dinner with her and listening earnestly to her advice like it was worth something to him.

Leia very suddenly wanted very badly to drag him out the door into some alley or another and kiss him until he forgot where he was.

It was something she hadn't felt in quite a while, if ever. She'd felt _something_ for Jude, and had daydreamed about kissing him, and she had had a number of very fraught dreams about Alvin kissing the bullet wound he'd given her away, and Milla had made her feel very giddy and off-balance on a number of occasions. She'd had crushes, was what it amounted to, and they had all felt different. That was probably what this was.

In order to be sure, she thought, she'd have to spend more time with him, and pay close attention to herself. More dinners like this. More long conversations. More emotional connection, emotional _intimacy_.

She thought about being his friend, for real, all that it might mean, and thought her heart might just beat straight out of her chest.

Being trusted to hear out his troubles, and share his joys. Sharing her own, and having him listen as if he actually cared. Being close enough to see everything under the mask. Close enough to touch.

"If you're not in too much of a hurry," she said, trying her hardest not to sound like she was propositioning him even though she very nearly was, "do you want to stop by the terrace afterwards for a bit? Night gets really dark here, so the stars are really something else."

"I shouldn't," Erston started. Then he stopped himself with the weight of everything she'd said that evening, and tried again. "That sounds very nice," he said instead. "Relaxing," he added unnecessarily.

She beamed at him. "Great. I won't keep you out too late, I promise; we'll have you zapped back to Fennmont in time for bed."

"Eight hours," he muttered again, under his breath like a curse.

From what she remembered, he rarely allowed himself more than three, and often less when he had an excuse or thought he could get away with it. That wasn't enough for anyone, no matter how much iron his willpower was laced with.

"Yes, Erston," she said, doing her best attempt at a stern expression. "Eight. I'd say nine if I didn't think you'd write me off completely. We sleep in cycles of about ninety minutes, you know? I'm sure it takes you ages to fall asleep, so if you set aside eight hours, you'll hopefully get six of actual sleep, which is better than what you're doing now at least."

"How do you know what I'm doing now?" he asked, affronted.

She raised an eyebrow and pressed her lips together, and he wilted.

"All right," he said with resignation. "You win. Eight hours."

"Rowen will be keeping tabs on you," she reminded him, "so even if I'm not there, I have ways of finding out if you're skimping again. And if I find out you are, I swear to the Four I will have Rowen dose your tea with one of Dr. Mathis' last-chance knockout cocktails. You'll be lucky if you wake up in the same week, then."

Erston looked suitably intimidated around his mouth, but his eyes were fighting a smile. "Remember when I said your mother was the only person on the list of people I hoped I never had to fight?"

She did. It had made her feel obscurely proud.

"I think I may have to add you to that list," he continued, thereby making her entire year. "You are a force to be reckoned with, Leia Rolando. Your mother's daughter through and through."

"Erston," Leia said as reasonably as she could manage, "if you keep this up I am honestly going to try and kiss your face. Fair warning."

To her surprise, again, that resulted in a blush that wasn't far short of fiery.

"That would be very improper," he said, somehow sounding all of ten years old despite his deep stony crevasse of a voice and all the years he had on her.

She rolled her eyes at him. "How many proposals have you gotten, again? I'm sure I'm not the first to—"

"Many, but none of them were you," he said, the blush cranking up towards scarlet somehow.

Leia stared at him. Many, he said, but their propositions hadn't bothered him because they weren't... her? Because they were there primarily on political business, not personal, and politics was something he was comfortable with? Because they weren't his friends? Because they didn't know him like she did? She couldn't think of a single explanation that didn't make her entire chest want to implode on itself.

"Okay, seriously," she said. "Can I kiss your face? You can say no, but I feel like you should know that I really, really want to right now."

"Leia," he said, sounding almost scandalized, "I'm twice your age, surely—"

"Not quite, anymore," she pointed out. "I'm twenty-one, and you're thirty-eight. A little less than twice my age, and you'll be a little less again every year from now on. Besides, you're just hiding behind that and you know it. I'm emancipated, I've been working full-time for years, I pay my own bills and buy my own dinner. I've saved the world twice. Once from you, even. If you honestly don't think I'm capable of making my own decisions, I might change my mind and punch you instead."

Erston gaped like a fish, but had no retort to that. "I do not believe that," he said hastily instead, rightly afraid of her knuckles. She'd learned a lot sparring with Jude back in the day. She wasn't Jude's level of martial artist, not without her staff, but she was good enough to make it hurt. "Of course you are capable. I simply—"

"Then if you just don't want me to, say that," she interrupted amiably. "I can take a no, you know."

"It's not that I—" He stopped, floundering.

It really was remarkable how easy it was to fluster him, once she knew where to aim, she thought. His seemingly impenetrable armour was full of weak spots, now that she'd gotten a better look at it.

"I won't be offended, honest," she promised. "I'm a big girl, you won't hurt my feelings."

"It really isn't that," he said fervently. "Leia, I have an embarrassing confession to make."

She couldn't stop herself from leaning forward a bit and steepling her fingers. Her eyes had brightened, too, she could tell. You could take the girl away from the reporting, it seemed, but not the reporter out of the girl. "Hit me," she said gleefully.

Closing his eyes hard, Erston muttered "I may not have ever... experienced that particular thing. I knew that if I gave them an inch, they would be only too happy to take the mile, so I never—"

"Erston," she breathed, "are you telling me you've never been kissed?"

His stiff back and expressionless face were all the proof she needed.

"Oh, sweet spirits," she whispered, "this is just unfair."

Raising a hand, she summoned the genius waiter, who had their bills ready to go, properly separated. She paid hers, stared at Erston until he paid his own, then stood up and tilted her head towards the door.

"Come on," she said. She didn't have a commander's voice, let alone a king's, but what she did have worked well enough.

Erston meekly followed her out onto the cool streets of Drellin an hour past sundown, then followed her to the northern terrace overlooking the river valley, and did not protest at anything. Not when she laced her fingers into his for the walk over. Not when she leaned into his side and rested her head against his shoulder to look up at the stars.

Not even when she reached up to brush the hard line of his jaw and the sensitive hairline at the nape of his neck, or when she put a little pressure there to invite him downwards.

As if he weren't nervous or unsettled at all, he followed her lead and kissed her back.

Leia had thought she was in trouble before. She had, she dimly realized now, severely underestimated the devastating potential of the situation. Erston had one big hand cupped tenderly around her jaw, long fingertips buried in her hair, and he was a furnace, a volcano of a man, being as gentle as the late summer wind with her.

Not bothering to think it through, she twined her arms around his neck and shoulders and pressed herself closer, deeper. He didn't know what he was doing and neither did she, really, and it didn't matter at all next to how it was making her feel.

His free hand flattened on her lower back to pull her harder against him, and she moaned into his mouth, far beyond any kind of dignity or self-control.

When at last he pulled away and left her standing small and shaken and bereft in the soft desert night, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to imagine them holding the rest of her together.

"I am," Erston said in a tone that was much, much too closer to tender, "very glad to have had that particular first with you. Thank you, Leia."

It was too much. It was all too much. She didn't know what to do with this. Those crushes she remembered seemed like little more than candlelight next to this sudden bonfire, and she couldn't seem to do anything but burn.

"Leia?" he asked, suddenly concerned. "Are you all right?"

She laughed, a little wildly. "Uh, yeah," she said, "totally fine. Sorry. You're... welcome? No, that's weird. I mean, I'm glad too, so I should thank you back or something."

"You're not all right," he said, brows furrowed. "I may not be the most observant man when it comes to things like this, but I know you better than I know most people, and you... are not all right."

Leia wanted to laugh again. Hysterically, this time. Every single thing he did made it worse. She wondered, quite honestly, how she hadn't run into this problem back when she'd been sleeping mere feet away from him at every campsite during that strange, strange year. Maybe she'd just been too distracted by everything else that was going on. Maybe she'd just never really looked properly. Maybe she'd just been totally, moronically oblivious, or maybe he'd just been better at holding her at arm's length. Maybe some of all of that.

Whatever the case, things were different now. She was an adult with a finely honed nose for emotional turmoil, and he was... _human_ , and she wanted to jump every single one of his bones.

She'd had too much to drink at dinner, she thought. Those fine, subtle Drellin spirits weren't weak just because they didn't taste like a kick in the teeth. This was all happening because they'd greased the works, and if she didn't stop now things would be exponentially more awkward in the morning.

"I just realized that I'm in a lot of trouble," she informed him, "but it's okay, it's not the kind of trouble you have to worry about. Much. You should go home and sleep. _I_ should go home and sleep. We should both go home and go to sleep and let this be a fond memory down the road. That would be... smart."

"What might the alternative be?" Gaius asked, low and curious.

Leia squeezed her eyes shut. "The alternative would be me kissing your face a whole lot more, and following you home, and doing every improper thing I can think of. You know who my best friends are; I can think of so, so many improper things. Just go home and save yourself, Erston."

"I think I shall," he said slowly, "but only because we are both somewhat... inebriated, at the moment. I am... I am not saying no, Leia, not in a final way. Just not this time. I would not be upset if you asked again."

Cursing vividly under her breath, Leia planted a hand in the center of his chest and pushed lightly. Just enough to make him stagger back a step. "I'll hold you to that, you know," she warned him. "I will. So go home."

Erston reluctantly turned and headed off towards the train station. Leia sagged against the terrace's railing, suddenly exhausted.

If there was any justice in the world, the inferno in her chest would die down overnight and she'd realize it was just the night air and the booze and the circumstances.

She teleported home to Trigleph, crawled into her comfortable double bed and passed out, clinging to that hope for dear life.

*

When she woke up, it was worse.

Leia sighed and got up to make herself coffee. It was going to be a long day, and a longer year.

*

As promised, Leia paid visits to a number of contacts whom she thought might be interested in a Rieze Maxian government position. Some, having found other passions, were no longer suited for it, but she found a good half dozen who were interested enough to accompany her to Fennmont for an introduction.

Honestly, she probably could have just sent them on their own with letters of introduction, but showing them off in person gave her an excuse to visit the palaces. Sometimes she guessed wrong and had to deal with Rowen alone, but more often than not she got it right and got a few minutes to talk to Gaius. Or rather, talk _at_ , since it was strictly business.

The fact of the matter was, her crush had reached critical levels with terrifying speed, and she was desperate to do something about it. Anything.

Until she got him hooked up with enough staff to take some of that weight off his shoulders, though, she'd never talk him into going anywhere with her just for fun. She'd just gotten lucky in Drellin. She couldn't count on being lucky again.

So she grabbed every excuse she could find, shamelessly, and marched through the palace doors as often as she could.

It helped a lot — for a certain value of the word 'help' — that Gaius brightened visibly every time she came in. Part of that was probably due to whoever she was bringing, since having a fully fleshed-out and competent staff was something of a first for him and he seemed quite excited about it, but she felt sure that at least a little of it was just for her.

What she wouldn't give to get him alone for even ten minutes. Five. It shouldn't be as hard as it was.

After she was done for the day, she retired to her cozy Trigleph apartment — not in the same building as Ludger's has been, but in the same neighbourhood — and took off her hat. She fed her cat, Solo — another of Rollo's progeny, the name was an inside joke with Alvin — and stroked his back when he was done so he'd keep it down. She made herself a simple pasta dinner, ate it with a little red wine, and curled up on the sofa to read.

She followed that pattern most nights, though she wasn't terribly attached to it or anything. It was just easy to turn her brain off and let her body autopilot through things for a bit, when she was tired after a long day.

Her reading time, though, had recently metamorphosed into "moon over Gaius" time, and she was embarrassed at herself. It didn't seem to matter what book she picked up, or how much she'd been looking forward to reading it; her brain inevitably skipped out and played truant in Gaiusville until bedtime rolled around.

Bedtime, of course, was even worse.

She had to do something about it before she ended up embarrassing herself in public somehow. Either lasso him, or get a solid no out of him and get her crying done and move on. She hadn't really had many significant others, and they hadn't been very significant, but she did at least have some idea how to handle a potentially unrequited crush.

The problem was, she couldn't even get him alone long enough to ask for an answer either way. What if he belatedly freaked out about the age gap again and had to have some sense talked into him? What if he said yes, but there were caveats? She needed an hour, not minutes, but she couldn't even get those.

For a brief, mad moment, she actively considered kidnapping him. It could work; she'd release him immediately, of course, and unharmed, but there were so many things that could go wrong. Besides, she'd feel ridiculous. Not that that was anything new.

Faceplanting into bed at the end of a day that was the end of a long line of long days, Leia sprawled all her limbs out and pressed her face into the pillows. If something didn't change soon, she thought she'd snap.

On the back of her eyelids, she wearily watched the Gaius Show yet again. It didn't really have any new material, since she hadn't seen him in weeks, but she couldn't fall asleep until it was done.

Tonight, it started with the first time she'd seen him again since she and Milla and the others had overthrown a god. In Drellin, wearing that beautifully cut black coat, badly hiding his excitement to be out and about amongst the common people for the first time in what might have been years. No one knew him there, no one expected a king from him. He'd looked so much more human than she'd ever seen him when he’d had the crown of Auj Oule weighing him down.

It might have started then, she admitted to the pillows. She'd only been sixteen, and there had been a world to save, and she had been tremendously distracted by her new job and her old friends. That odd little tingle she'd felt looking at Erston Outway, a man she thought she knew but also felt she was somehow only just then meeting for the first time, seemed of little consequence and fell by the wayside.

Then he'd met her parents, and been intimidated by her mother like every single other man who came through the inn, and made a joke about it like an actual person.

The Chimeriad in that fractured dimension, and his sad belated understanding of what he'd had with them.

The Gaius dumplings, and his surprisingly warm feelings for them.

The camera, and his little Trigleph friends, and that smile.

Kissing him under Drellin's late-night sky.

Making a furious little moan of frustration, Leia punched her pillows for a bit, then rolled over at stared at the ceiling. She was too tired for this, but not tired enough to fall asleep without it.

Tomorrow, she decided, she would pry him out of the Kanbalar castle even if she had to use a crowbar.

*

So, the next day, Leia marched into the castle at Kanbalar alone.

Accustomed to her presence by now, the guards let her in without argument, though they did seem curious as to why she had no one with her. She... didn't feel like enlightening them.

The throne room was empty, but that wasn't surprising, at this time of day. He did his audiences in the early afternoon, and it was still only mid-morning. She marched past it to the rooms beyond, and followed her gut to one of the smaller libraries.

Sure enough, there he was, mechanically chewing his way through a disgustingly massive stack of papers, tapping the desk with his fingers occasionally as he pondered which pile to put the next one into. There seemed to be a pile for things he approved of, which got signed and put to his left. Next to it in the center was a much smaller pile for things he apparently needed more information on. On the right was the largest stack, for rejected proposals.

And, she realized, she'd been standing there for several minutes watching him like a _total creep_.

"I'm not stalking you, I swear," she said, because he would have known. His senses were sharp as anything, there's no way he'd miss someone standing in the doorway for ages staring at him. Like a _total creep_.

"I had no such suspicions," Gaius said with a smile that he had probably meant to be warm. It came out rather wan instead.

She squinted at him. "Have you slept?"

The answer was immediately clear in the way he looked back down at the papers and went rather still. "I—"

"You haven't," she said reproachfully. "Where's Rowen? I thought he was keeping an eye on you."

"In Marksburg with the chancellor," Gaius said. "Ostensibly hammering out the details of an amendment to the trade agreement, and I have no doubt that it will be accomplished, but I think he—"

"Needed a break?" Leia cut in, folding her arms. She was still only half his size, at best, but she'd learned from the best. Her attempts at intimidation usually worked more often than not. "Like a human being who understands his limits, and knows that the responsible thing to do is take care of himself so he can do his job better when he gets back?"

Gaius sighed and sunk his face into his hands. "Even with all your help, I still feel like I'll never catch up," he said. "The more help I have, the more work there seems to be."

Leia crossed the room to take the chair across the desk from him. She propped her face in her hands and stared him down. "Is there actually more work, or are you just expanding your priorities because you can leave the stuff you were doing before to them? That wasn't the idea, Gaius. You were doing the work of ten men. You were supposed to divide that up against the people you hired so that in the end you'd only be doing the work of _one_ man. Two at the most."

He looked up to meet her gaze ruefully, reaching out across the maelstrom of paperwork with one hand.

Without thinking about it, she took it in both of hers. Her hands were warmer than his. She could almost feel how low his energy reserves were just touching him. The sluggish, weary beat of his heart, the faint tremble at his wrist.

"I don't know how to stop," he told her, and this time it wasn't a confession since he'd told her before. It was a plea for... something. Understanding? Help?

Leia could do both of those. "I think I'm going to stop you, then," she told him.

She'd meant to have a proper talk with him, about her feelings and what — if anything — he'd be willing to give her of himself. This was happening instead, and she couldn't bring herself to wish it wasn't.

"Oh?" he asked, amused. "How, exactly?"

"When Rowen gets back," she said, "he's going to take over for you for a little bit, and I'm going to abduct you."

"You're going to—"

"Abduct you," she repeated seriously. "If you cooperate, I'll refrain from stuffing you into a burlap sack, but you are coming with me and you have no say in it, so it's an abduction."

He still looked amused, but he no longer seemed to think she was joking, so that was something.

*

True to her word, four days later Leia knocked Gaius out with Rowen's help, bundled him out of the castle via the back way, and took him to Hamil.

It was about as far from both Kanbalar and Fennmont as she could get him without taking him to Elympios, which would probably be counterproductive. Whenever he was there, he was compelled to talk to the people around him, trying to learn more so that he could more effectively govern Rieze Maxia as Elympios' neighbour.

Hamil was small, quiet, cheerful. It had lovely views towards the bay across the lowlands, and the orchards were always a delight, but it wasn't a tourist destination for the most part so even now that summer was rising it would still be calm and comfortable in the ruts of its day-to-day life.

She had considered Leronde first, of course, but it was — quite literally — too close to home. Much as she did want to get closer to him, bringing him home to her parents in a metaphorical burlap sack would be a bit much. She already had a hard enough time coming off like a full-grown and competent adult as it was, with her adorable nose and perky face and short, slim frame.

That at least might change when she made editor in chief, which looked likely to happen within the year, but as it was.... she needed all the help she could get, and also needed to avoid all the pitfalls she could spot.

So, not Leronde, where everyone remembered her as a belligerent little girl with her hair in pigtails first and foremost. Not Leronde, where all her childhood memories lived, where her room was exactly as she'd left it.

Hamil was the closest thing to neutral ground she could think of. Nominally ruled by Auj Oule until the unification, but having been doing just fine mostly on its own for decades, there wouldn't be much for him to fix, and even less the townspeople would welcome his interference with.

By the time she had him safely ensconced in their room at the inn, with the help of a levitation spyrite she was fervently grateful to Jude for inventing, he was already coming back around. The dose of Dr. Mathis' knock-out concoction in his tea had been carefully measured to avoid causing harm, but had therefore erred on the side of possibly wearing off too early.

This, thankfully, was not too early. This was just about right on time.

Sitting up and rubbing the grime out of his eyes, Gaius peered around, befuddled, until his eyes found her. "Leia?" he mumbled blearily. "Where are we? What happened?"

"I thought about just asking you to leave town with me," she said, "but I promised to abduct you, and you said you were looking forward to it, so I figured I'd better deliver."

Blinking, he stared at her for a moment. "What did you do?"

She shrugged. "Are you asking because you're personally curious, or because you're already thinking about how to beef up security so no one else can do what I did?"

"Both," he said, growing clearer by the moment. His brows drew together. "You must have drugged me."

She pursed her lips. "Technically, I didn't," she said. "I just acquired it. _Rowen_ drugged you."

"I should hang you all for traitors," he said, but there was no real anger in his voice. Some chagrin, and some wariness, but no anger.

"Don't worry," she reassured him, "there won't be any nasty aftereffects. Jude's dad might be a complete jerk, but he knows his business. I didn't even bonk your head on the way out of the castle. As abductions go, I think I was very considerate."

"Thanks ever so," he said dryly, then looked down at his clothes and frowned. "I do hope this was Rowen's work, too?"

Blushing, she assured him that it was. They could hardly tote him around the continent dressed like the very recognizable king of the world, so Rowen had dressed him in his preferred disguise. For now, he was Erston Outway again.

He seemed to realize that, and smiled faintly to himself as he smoothed the lapels of his long black coat and swung his legs off the bed. "Well, then," he said, looking more cheerful already, "where have you taken me, vile abductress?"

She held out a hand with a grin. "Nowhere spectacular," she said. "Just somewhere nice."

He took it without hesitation, which pleased her, and followed her out of the inn. Taking in the rolling dirt streets and cheery red roofs, he said "Ahhh."

"If you'd rather go somewhere else, that can be discussed," she told him with her hands sternly braced on her hips, "but I won't let you go anywhere near Kanbalar, Fennmont, Marksburg or Trigleph. No work for you. Not even networking. You are on vacation, and I mean to see you get all the rest and relaxation you can stand."

Laughing softly, he squeezed her hand. "I cannot guarantee that I'll be able to leave it behind so easily," he said, "but I will try. For you, and all the effort you are putting into saving me from myself, I will try."

With her free hand, Leia clutched reflexively at her chest, where her heart was thumping painfully against her ribs. "There you go again," she muttered under her breath. Then she put on a bright face and looked up to meet his eyes. "Thanks," she said, "glad to hear it. Want to go for a walk in the clearing?"

"That sounds nice," he agreed.

He still hadn't let go of her hand.

*

The clearing was redolent with clover and new grass and drifting blossoms from the orchards visiting on the wind. It was neither warm nor cool, just comfortable.

Leia made him sit down on the grass and clover and do nothing for a while.

It was clearly difficult for him. She watched his body tense as he thought of all the things he should be doing, then relax as he forced himself to set them aside, then tense again as something he'd missed snuck up on him. He really was trying. She had to give him that.

"Here," she said, "lie down."

He looked over at her, puzzled. "Lie down? On the grass? I'm not sleepy."

She laughed. "No, doofus, on my lap."

To her gratification, that produced a distinct blush. "That seems rather... intimate," he said stiffly.

"Well, yeah," she said. "I mean, if you're not comfortable with it that's okay, but that was kind of the point." She hesitated for a moment, then decided she might as well go for broke. "In case you're unclear on this, Erston," she said, deliberately using his commoner name to remind him of who and what he was at the moment, "I'm flirting with you."

For a long moment, he held her gaze, balanced on the edge of the decision. Then he drew a deep, calm breath and carefully laid his big body down so that his head rested in the hollow of her folded legs. "My head isn't too heavy?" he asked awkwardly, folding his hands across his midriff and straightening his legs.

"No," she murmured, taking the proffered opportunity to stroke her fingers through the edges of hair, brushing it away from his eyes.

He shivered faintly, and she bit her lip.

"Watch the clouds, or the trees, or close your eyes," she told him softly, "and listen to me."

Obediently, he trained his eyes towards the crowns of the trees, where the branches swayed in counterpoint to the passing wisps of cloud.

"There is nothing you need to do," she continued once he had chosen his spot. "There is nowhere you need to be. You don't need to be anywhere but here or do anything but this. You're just Erston Outway, a regular human being having a regular human chillout session."

"A what?" he asked, frowning, concentration broken.

Leia sighed. "You're relaxing," she amended. "You're allowed. Everyone needs to do it sometimes. It's fine to just lie here and breathe in the fresh air and do absolutely nothing for a while. There's no deadline."

Lulled by her steady, quiet, confident voice, the ever-present tension slowly began to leak out of his body into the ground.

To help it along, she slid her fingers around his head to massage the base of his neck with slow, determined pressure. Her thumbs drew circles on his temples.

After a few minutes of that, as she'd hoped, his eyelids drifted shut. She kept her hands where they were, but slowed their motion and eventually stopped. He remained asleep with his head cradled in her legs and hands, breathing deeply and evenly as the sprightly wind danced around him.

Leia watched his peaceful face, unable to look away. She'd never seen him look like this before. Even in sleep, on the road, he had been stern-faced and ready to spring awake at a moment's notice to deal with anything. Like this, sleeping without care or tension, he looked younger. Closer to his actual age. Less charismatic, and more vulnerable.

Within reach.

Drawing in a deep, careful breath, Leia let it out in a prolonged sigh. She'd wanted to get closer to him, and it was working, but that meant she was... well, closer to him, and that was great but in a way that was kind of hard to endure. Being this close, but not quite close enough... it was almost worse than being distant, though she wouldn't trade it back for the world. Wonderful, but painful.

"Oh, man, do I ever have it bad," she muttered to herself ruefully.

"Have what bad," Erston mumbled sleepily from her lap.

She winced. "Crap. Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"Have what bad?" he repeated insistently, reaching up half-blindly to brush his fingers against her cheek.

It was such a small gesture, but so tender it nearly broke down the floodgates on the spot. "It," she said, "for you."

His brow crinkled up. She lifted her thumbs and pressed them down to smooth them out, then rubbed a few more circles over his temple.

"Mmm," he said. "What is 'it'?"

"Oh, just go back to sleep," she said. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Leia," he said softly.

Just her name, but it brooked no excuses. He didn't even use his king-of-the-world voice. Still just Erston, and she couldn't resist him any more than she could Gaius in top form.

"Oh, fine," she sighed helplessly. "If your eyes work at all, you've probably noticed that I have a massive crush on you anyway, so I might as well just—"

Abruptly, Erston was sitting up, leaning on one hand with his face less than a foot from hers. "I may be rather out of the loop when it comes to slang," he said quietly, "but I know what that word means, at least."

Reddening, she dropped her eyes away from his into his lap. "Well, I mean, like I said: it was pretty obvious, so—"

"Obvious or not, I wasn't sure," he said. "For all the things I've done, my experience in this arena adds up to distressingly little, and you have lived a very different life from mine. I couldn't assume anything."

"Well, uh, now that you don't have to assume... how do you feel about that?" she asked, feeling her soul doing its best to crawl out of her skin and flee to safety. She wasn't a coward, though, so she was going to sit tight and see this through however miserably embarrassing it got. She _was_.

Erston looked... thoughtful. "I'm sure it has occurred to you that I am much too old for you," he said at last.

Leia nodded. "I'm aware of that, yep. I'm also aware that you've been ruling millions longer than I've been alive, and I'm just a reporter. I mean, I'm proud of my job, but I'm not dumb enough to think there's no disconnect there."

"We have very little in common, besides our mutual interest in saving the world in whatever way it needs saving at the moment," he continued.

"You need to make an advantageous marriage to someone qualified to do a queen's job, and probably make yourself an heir or two, and I'd never even make the shortlist by any criteria that even kind of make sense."

"I'm cold and harsh, and I am good at being a king but not very good at being a man," he said.

"And I'm an obnoxious ball of energy and aggression who doesn't know when to quit," she countered cheerfully. "We're a terrible match on so many levels and I logically get that but honestly, Erston, I don't really care. I just like you. I'm a simple creature at heart, so that's enough for me to charge in headfirst and see what happens."

"You're right that I have to consider my position when choosing a partner," he said slowly. "I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but sooner rather than later it will become a necessity, and you're right that you would be ill-suited to the task."

"Wow, tell me how you really feel," she said, lightly to cover the sting she'd seen coming and braced for but could not have avoided entirely.

"I'm trying," he said earnestly.

She closed her mouth, tacitly making way for him to keep going.

And he did, though it took him a moment to gather his thoughts again. "I," he said, faltering. "I do not think I will have the luxury of marrying for love as well as duty," he pressed onward, "but in such cases, it is not uncommon for one or both partners to discreetly seek fulfillment elsewhere."

Leia's eyebrows climbed straight up her forehead under her bangs.

"Can I just clarify here," she said cautiously, "for a second? I was all ready to wade through the crappiness of an unrequited crush, but uh, this is sounding kind of... somehow...."

Erston smiled. Not an eighth of a smile, or even a quarter; a whole one. It used his whole face and made him look like an entirely different person. Or rather, a _bigger_ person than she'd realized; this was whole new territory in a land she'd thought she'd already explored pretty well. It was warm, and beautiful, and she upgraded her feelings from "ill-advised crush" to "obviously doomed love" on the spot as she stared directly into its radiance and let it blind her.

"If you're asking if I too am interested in seeing where this goes," he said, "I am."

"Oh," she said faintly. "That's— I didn't— Listen, I don't know how to respond to that, so can I just kiss you instead?"

He was still smiling. If anything, it widened a bit, and that was _tremendously_ unfair.

"You may," he said, probably aiming for regal but missing by a fairly wide margin.

Without preamble, she rolled up onto her knees so she could lean forward, which put her face a bit higher than this. That was fine. She liked that. He didn't flinch away when she took his face in her hands, and he leaned up a little to meet her when she moved to close the distance.

His mouth was cool, full of fresh spring wind, but his skin was warm, and she didn't ever want to move from that moment.

She let her hands slide back through his hair until her arms were curled around his neck, and she felt his big hands pressing gently into her back. Tipping forward into his lap, she put her weight on him until he slowly lay backwards into the grass with her atop him, kissing him like she meant to die of it.

And he didn't just _let_ her do it. He welcomed her, reciprocated what she offered, demanded as much back as she demanded from him. He kissed her back. Properly.

Maybe she did mean to die of it. Not right this second, not today or this week or this year, but one day she intended to suffocate to death because she’d forgotten to take a break from kissing him to breathe.

"You should marry Driselle," she said breathlessly while taking a break to do exactly that, leaning her forehead against him to keep contact.

"Driselle?" he asked, startled. "I hadn't really drawn up a list of candidates yet, but I suppose she would be on it, at least. Why her?"

"She has administrative experience, she's passionate about the job, she's young and strong and has lots of energy to put into it, and she thinks you're the bee's knees," Leia explained. "As a prominent member of the Rashugal nobility, she's a great choice for reinforcing international unity. Also, she has a successor right there to look after Sharilton for her, so she wouldn't be torn on the basis of duty. I'm pretty sure she'd jump at the chance to make a difference on the larger scale, actually. I don't know who else you'd put on your list, but I'm having a hard time thinking of how someone could be a better choice than that."

"You're... right," he said slowly. "She is the obvious choice, and I cannot at the moment think of anyone better either."

"Finally," Leia said, then paused. She wondered if she ought to keep quiet about this one, but decided that she shouldn't. It was relevant, and she'd been given carte blanche by the relevant parties to disclose as her judgement decreed. "Uh, finally: she's not into men that way, so she'd definitely understand the need to find fulfillment outside the marriage bed and all that."

"Not into— Do you mean she's—"

"Yep," Leia confirmed cheerfully.

"With Elize," he continued, following the breadcrumb trail to the end.

"With Elize," she agreed. "They were just friends at first, for years, but it kind of turned into more than that eventually, and they've been dating for about six months now."

"I am happy for both of them," Erston said, looking like he meant it. "If you would pass on my well-wishes the next time you see them, I would appreciate it."

Leia frowned, pulling back a bit to look at his eyes. "Ooor you could do that yourself, when you talk to Driselle about this? Which you should probably do soon, before she finds someone else."

Abruptly, she regretted having brought up this train of thought. She could see the considerations and needs of the future visibly weighing him down again, after he'd finally manage to slip the yoke for a few minutes.

"Of course," he said heavily, "I will. I only meant, if you see them first."

"Oh," she said in a very small voice, feeling like a very big idiot. "Listen, Erston—"

He cut her off with a tired smile and a soft caress of her cheekbone. "I will talk to her about it, and soon, I promise you," he said, "but for the moment, I would very much prefer to think about something else."

"Something like this?" Leia asked softly, recognizing a deliberate opening when she saw one and pressing back in until her forehead rested against his and their noses touched.

Erston sighed and ran his hands up her sides, so lightly she could barely feel it. Every nerve he brushed tingled with tiny lightnings.

"Yes," he said. "Most definitely preferable."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and set to again, taking her time even more deliberately this time. He had room to breathe, when he needed to, but she didn't let herself say a single word unless he started something. If he wanted to be distracted, she was on the job.

After a few minutes, they tipped over again, but this time landed more side by side, with Erston propped up on one elbow to look down at her and direct things.

He was so big, she realized again. She'd been realizing it ever since she'd first met him, and it never seemed to be done sinking in. On the small side she might be, but she was still basically within the average range. He wasn't just on the big side: he was a titan, though he was so proportionate that it wasn't always obvious until she got close enough. She was fairly certain it would take two of her and change to make one of him.

It should have scared her, being pinned under someone with a weight advantage that dramatic, but fear was the furthest thing from her mind.

His hair fell all around her face. Bringing her hands up, she combed them through it slowly and deliberately, enjoying the cool, silky feel of it spilling across the sensitive webs between her fingers. Honestly, she thought, she might be content to just play with his hair for hours on end while he did paperwork and other kingly things. While he sat in audience, even. She could just sit on the arm of the throne and idly plait braids into it, and undo them, and redo them, until he was done. Even something that small and odd could make her happy.

Maybe she couldn't be queen, and maybe she didn't want to be, but she thought maybe she could have _something_ of him, and maybe she'd be willing to make some pretty big sacrifices for that chance.

"I'm seriously nuts about you," she informed him softly when they next parted to draw breath. "Like, I don't even know how to convey this to you without sounding like an obsessive weirdo. I want to glue myself to your face."

"That... is definitely an odd thing to say," he allowed with the ghost of a grin, "but for whatever it may be worth to you, I am tremendously fond of you as well. It always brightens my day immeasurably when you drop in, whether or not you have any new candidates with you."

She'd thought so, and hoped so, but having it confirmed set fire to a whole new stack of kindling in her heart. "It's worth a lot, Erston," she said honestly. "Like, I have no idea what I can reasonably hope for here, but just knowing that you like me back means so much to me."

"What do mean, hope for?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

Instinctively, she poked the little canyon with her finger, encouraging it to smooth back out. "I mean, I know you have to marry someone for the political stuff, but... is there room for me outside of it? Are you actually asking me to be your mistress or whatever, or am I just reading too much into things because I want so badly to see it there?"

Instead of answering directly, Erston sighed and kissed her again for a long, long moment. When he finally let her go, he found her hands and held them within his own. "I don't know how much time or energy I can promise you," he said seriously, "but if you would be satisfied with being my mistress, despite being more than capable of finding someone else who would be devoted only to you, I would be honoured."

Leia laughed.

Clearly that hadn't been the reaction he'd been expecting, and he drew back, drawing a thick mask of calm over the obvious hurt on his face.

"Oh no, Erston, no," she said, reaching out to him, realizing immediately which tremendously wrong conclusion he'd jumped to. "It's just... my first thought was 'I don't have time to maintain a full-time boyfriend anyway' and that's so.... You didn't say anything funny. I'd be more than honoured to accept your offer. Thrilled, really. I honestly didn't think I had a chance with you at all so I'm kind of so happy right now I can't even feel it. It'll sink in soon, probably."

The mask softened and drew back, to her relief, but his brows furrowed even as his real face returned.

"Why would you think you had no chance?" he asked, sounding honestly baffled, which was baffling in its own right. "You—"

She lifted a hand and began counting things off on her fingers, interrupting him. "Age difference. Class difference. Fraught mutual history. Your apparent lack of interest in romance in general. Demanding career paths on both sides, yours requiring marriage to someone with a bunch of qualifications I don't have. We were just over this. It's not really a mystery."

"Oh," said Erston, uncharacteristically subdued. "I suppose, when you lay it all out in a line like that, it does seem like a great deal, but Leia...."

He paused, then, meeting her eyes, for so long that she began to wonder if he'd somehow gotten lost in them. They weren't the kind people usually got lost in. It would require some doing.

"Yes?" she prompted eventually.

He came out of his little trance with a swift, sharp shake of his head. "All those things are true," he admitted. "You are half my age, but you are also a competent adult who has accomplished more in her life already than most ever will, and you have the right to make your own decisions, as you did when you pursued me. You are not involved in the aristocracy, but neither was I, until I supplanted what was already there; we are both of common birth. We did fight on opposing sides once, against each other, but we came to an understanding and have since grown close, so I don't think that is so much an issue anymore."

"All right, okay, I get it—" she started to say, laughing, but he wasn't done.

"My first love has always been my land and its people," he said seriously, "and I believe it will always come first for me. There has always been so much for me to do that I had no time to waste on dalliances, and there was not yet much need for a queen. You are right, though, that I will need one sooner rather than later, and I agree with your nominated candidate, as I hope the lady herself will."

Leia sighed. "I know I'm right, we've already talked this out. I only listed it all off again because you didn't seem to get why I didn't think I was an option for you."

"I know," he said, placating. "I'm not explaining because I've forgotten. I'm laying it out so that you understand that _I_ understand our relative circumstances. But all of that said, anyone would stop to consider if propositioned by someone like you. Even kings. Even gods."

"You say that like you think Milla would have given me a chance, too," Leia said, aiming for playful but missing badly. She didn't have a poor opinion of herself by any means, her self-esteem was fully intact and quite robust, but something about praise from Gaius always bowled her right over, and he'd inadvertently poked an old sore spot there.

He nodded gravely. "I believe she would have, yes."

"She had Jude," Leia pointed out. "She had him long before she even met me."

"Do you believe that each person can only love one other at a time?" he asked. An honest question, it seemed.

Feeling somewhat stuck, Leia reluctantly shook her head. "I'd be a hypocrite if I said yes. I've had simultaneous crushes more than once myself. You're kind of supposed to pick one, though, right? I mean—"

"Who decided that?" Erston interrupted. "True, the paperwork is much simpler when restricted to marriages and partnerships involving only two, but there are many business relationships that are easily as complicated with regards to possession and inheritance that involve three, four, or five parties, or even more. The unification treaties with the clans of Auj Oule are one example I could literally spend days detailing for someone who wished to understand. And formal union aside, whom does it harm, so long as all parties are clear on the boundaries in play?"

Leia gaped at him. Of all the things she had expected him to have well-formed and rather vehement opinions on, polyamory had not been on the list. "Well, uh," she said, searching for a response and drawing an unfortunate blank.

"If you had pursued her, as you have pursued me, I feel certain that she would have given your proposition due consideration," he said, sounding very nearly smug. Pleased with himself, in any case. "Of course, she would have discussed it with Jude, and then with you and Jude together, and answered honestly in the end. Whether she would have said yes is anyone's guess now, but I for one would not have been very surprised."

"Oh," said Leia in a small voice. Her chest hurt. She hadn't thought her crush on Milla was all that serious, in hindsight, and she'd made herself give up when she realized that Jude had his heart set, but that spot was more sore than it should have been, given all that. How many hours had she spent lying awake under the stars while the campfire crackled nearby, daydreaming about crawling into Milla's bedroll with her and burying her face in those elegant clavicles? "Well, uh, thanks for the ego boost, I guess. Nice to know I'm a hot commodity."

He frowned. "You are not a commodity, Leia."

"I know that—" she started to say, exasperated.

"You are," he continued, cutting her off, "simply one of the most remarkable people I have ever met."

She sank her face into her hands for a minute to soak up some of the heat of her blush, then made herself look up into his eyes. "Um, likewise," she said, with great feeling she hoped he was picking up on. "That's another reason to add to the list, honestly; you have charisma coming off you in waves, and I... don't. You come off as larger than life so much of the time, and I'm pretty much exactly life-sized. Maybe a little smaller, considering how short I am."

It was a joke, but he didn't laugh, and she didn't feel like laughing at her own joke by herself, so it fell flat on the fragrant air.

"I think," he said quietly, "you may be underestimating yourself. Perhaps you were ordinary and forgettable when you were still in Leronde, helping out wherever you were needed with no ambitions of your own, but you have not been ordinary or forgettable for quite some time. You've saved the world twice, as you keep reminding me, and that gives you a certain weight of presence. Your years of determined effort in your profession of choice have also expanded that. I do not believe anyone would say that you lack charisma anymore."

There were silent fireworks in her chest, suddenly. _A person of consequence,_ she thought. Someone who _mattered_ , someone people would remember for her effect on the world around her. All she had ever wanted to be.

"I think that's the end of the list," she said meekly. "I have no more obstacles to point out. You?"

"None," he said with a pleased little quirk of his mouth. "Now that that's settled, may I borrow your lap again for a little while? I am wearier than I wanted to admit, still, and that was more comfortable than I expected."

Leia gave him the most beautiful smile she knew how to make, and patted her thighs. "Come here," she said, and reached out to welcome him over and down.

"Thank you," he said once he had arranged himself, and she knew it was for more than the lap-pillow.

"Anytime," she said softly, and meant it.

**X**

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days I should probably write something that will actually make me money, but it is not this day.


End file.
